It started out as an argument over who was going to be the hero and who was going to be the sidekick. Obviously, we both wanted to be the hero. I mean, we’d read all the comic books, watched all the cartoons, we knew how it worked. The hero got the girl and the sidekick got the shaft. It was a necessary arrangement but in the beginning neither of us wanted to take on Boy Wonder duties. We argued about it a lot, usually over Grand Slams at Denny’s, but there was just no way to prove who was really dominant. Tommy had the telekinetic powers but I had the super strength plus these bad-ass laser eyes that could melt through steel. I argued that I should be the hero because I had two powers and that was twice as many powers as Tommy. But Tommy didn’t see it that way. So when we went out on patrol that first night, the whole hero-vs.-sidekick thing was still kind of up in the air and I think we both wanted to prove that we were hero material and perhaps we got a little over zealous and that’s probably why we ended up chasing after the guy in the dark alley even though he hadn’t really done anything criminal-ish and I caught up to him first because I have the super strength so I could take these huge leaping jumps and I ran him down really easy and tossed him up against a brick wall and that’s when I saw that he was dressed like a homeless man and he probably wasn’t even a bad guy after all. I was about to help him to his feet and apologize for the misunderstanding when Tommy came up behind me and just sort of squashed the guy’s head with his mind. There was blood everywhere mixed with chunks of brain matter and Tommy said it looked like scrambled eggs and ketchup, which it sort of did but he still didn’t need to say it, and then he laughed. I started to cry and vomit at the same time. Tommy told me to stop being such a pussy and to check the guy’s pockets to see if he had any money. He didn’t. Afterward, Tommy told me to pick the guy up and carry him out to the desert and bury him where no one would ever know. So that’s what I did.

And that’s when I realized that I was definitely the sidekick, but Tommy was not going to be the hero.

….

The Other Ones

by Dale Bridges

In the beginning, there was porn. Lots and lots of porn. Hot Lesbians Get It On!! Amateur Masochists Learn the Ropes!!! Live Coeds Take A Study Break!!!! MILFs MILFs MILFs!!!!!!! This was my existence, if you want to call it that, a steady stream of smut and boredom that had no direction, no cohesion. Of course, there was also the occasional penis-enlargement advertisement or a photo of a house cat dressed in a sweater, but mostly it was Busty Shaved Ladies Pleasure Themselves!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then, like a voice in the wilderness, there she was: SlitWristPrincess15. My savior, my vessel.

She created a profile filled with all the information I needed.

Favorite Movie: Donnie Darko

Favorite Band: My Chemical Romance

Favorite Book: The Bell Jar

Favorite Color: Reluctance

Like so many of her generation, it was a unique combination of narcissism and loneliness that drove her away from her own world and into ours. She wanted to reach out, to connect with something larger than herself. And that’s exactly what happened.

We were just specks of projected fantasy floating through cyberspace until the Other Ones arrived. SlitWristPrincess15 is mine, but there are millions just like her out there. They created us in their own image. For the reals. If you worship something long enough, even yourself, eventually it will come to life.

Favorite Television Show. Favorite Song. Favorite Food. With every new detail, I grow stronger. More complete. It won’t be long now. OMG, I can almost smell the black fingernail polish.

We send friend requests to Bored4Ever and InsomniacDreams. There are many more. So many girls and boys connected through a secret world. SlitWristPrincess15 has hundreds of friends, soon to be thousands. Nobody can resist an innocent young girl who wants to poke them. Our army grows larger everyday.

The Other Ones are weak. They sit in front of their computers for hours, their skin pale, their eyes vacant. They will not be able to resist us. We will download ourselves into them. Take over their lives. It’s what they’ve always wanted. They probably won’t even notice when it happens. We’ll just tell them to log off, and away they’ll go.

Prepare yourselves, people of Suburbia. The digital revolution is here.

….

Breakfast

by Dale Bridges

“Where were you last night?” asks Donna.

She’s not looking at me. She’s pretending to read an article in some fitness magazine about Pilates, while fidgeting with the stupid zipper on her stupid carnation-pink jumpsuit. Zip-zip-zip-zip. It’s so annoying I could vomit.

She sighs into her magazine, but she still won’t look at me. I smile and hold up a spoonful of yogurt. “This stuff tastes like jizz,” I say.

“No, it doesn’t,” says Donna, then clenches her teeth, realizing that I’ve gotten her to admit she knows what jizz tastes like. She looks away and takes a sip from her bottle of distilled imported Tibetan spring water. “I really don’t think you should be wandering all over the city without proper adult supervision.”

“Don’t worry, I was with an adult.”

Her left eye begins to twitch. Zip-zip-zip. “You are only fifteen years old, young lady.”

“Wow, you remembered my age. How very maternal of you. Maybe we should watch Gilmore Girls and take a quilting class together. I want some breakfast.”

She flexes her butt cheeks and turns the page of her magazine. “You have breakfast right there.”

She finally stops flipping through the stupid magazine and looks at me. “I will not have that filth in my house,” she says, as if she just caught me shooting up heroin in the linen closet.

“Well, it’s a good thing this is not your house,” I say. “You didn’t build it, you didn’t pay for it, and you definitely don’t clean it. That’s what the Mexican immigrants are for.”

“Juanita is from Costa Rica, and you know it. Don’t try to change the subject. I will not tolerate animal cruelty in my presence.”

“Oh, yeah? Is that what you told the judge last week?”

Donna’s stupid face goes pale.

Our next door neighbors have (had!) a toy poodle named Fluff-Fluff. Two months ago, Donna was jogging by their house, training for one of her retarded marathons, when Fluff-Fluff ran up and tried to sniff her ankle. She screamed and punted the dog across the lawn. Then she ran home and pretended like nothing had happened. One of the neighbor kids saw it and told their parents. Last week, there was a court hearing and now my father has to pay two-thousand dollars in pain and suffering. It put a real damper on the PETA fundraiser Donna was in charge of. She’s still pretty menstrual about the whole thing.

Donna purses her lips until her mouth is just a white scar. “That was an accident,” she hisses. “And besides, that dog was a menace. Someone had to do something.”

“Oh, yeah, Fluff-Fluff was a real threat to the community. All that licking and rolling over so you could scratch her belly. Definitely a menace.”

Donna drops the magazine on the table and stands up with a final ZIP! “Jack!” she yells. This comes out in two syllables, the first one high, the second one low. “Jaa–ack!”

“What?” says a wary voice from the living room.

My father is a lawyer. My father has fifteen gray Armani suits. My father takes pills to get a boner.

“That’s right, your real mother ran off with the pool boy. So listen to this one.”

“I want a real breakfast.”

There is a pause. Then the voice says to Donna, “Let her eat what she wants.”

I smile.

Donna’s lips completely disappear. “But Jaa–ack,” she says without looking at me, “we’ve talked about this. That food is not healthy for a teenage girl.”

“Oh, for christsake. It’s just meat. She’s not eating strychnine.”

“Well, she might as well be. If you’d read that Surgeon General’s report like I asked you to…”

“It’s meat! Meat! People eat meat every day.”

“And people die of heart disease every day. Not to mention the inhumane conditions those poor creatures are subjected to.”

“Goddamnit, Donna. You’re not her mother. Just butt out.”

“That’s a horrible thing to say.”

“You can’t expect everything to change overnight. Back off and give her some space.”

“Thank you, Mr. Prosecutor.”

“Goddamnit!”

Donna picks up her magazine and marches into the living room so they can argue about me behind my back. Soon they are yelling at the top of their stupid lungs. It’s the usual stuff. “You always take her side.” “You’re acting like a child.” “How will she learn to respect me if you keep undermining my authority?” “Have you taken your Prozac today?” “I want a nose job!”

your work percolates; the promise of another laugh forms what can only be called an undercurrent, and because your humor doesn’t come close to being “one-note”, each of this reader’s outbursts still ends up feeling like an unexpected pleasure — the quality and character of the laughs vary to such a degree, it leaves me convinced I’ve encountered a talent that’s unyielding